A single-piece body instrument station with ports therethrough to accommodate measurement devices and piping accessories is described herein.
Currently, instrument stations are constructed with accessory ports that are manually installed at a job site in a pipe by drilling and welding procedures. Such xe2x80x9con the jobxe2x80x9d installation increases the likelihood of improperly sized or irregular ports, misplaced or misaligned ports, delay during installation, or other such disadvantages. These imprecise installation disadvantages can result in inaccurate measurements by measuring devices and piping accessories.
The Nextrol instrument station overcomes these disadvantages by providing an instrument station having a single-piece body that incorporates ports for measuring devices and piping accessories, such as a thermometer, a drain valve, an air vent, a pressure or temperature transmitter, or other measuring device. A balancing type valve may be connected to the instrument station to adjust the flow.
The Nextrol instrument station described herein has a single-piece body that includes accessory ports. Such an instrument station eliminates an installer""s burden of acquiring and separately fabricating the parts onto a piping system. Although each port on the instrument station has a particular suitability for a particular measuring type device or piping accessory, the ports could be used with any desired device. In one embodiment, the Nextrol instrument station includes ports particularized for utilized measuring devices or piping accessories used to measure flow in a flow system. In fact, in many instances the measuring devices or piping accessories utilized or included herein are required in such systems, for example, to pipe up a water coil or in a centrifugal pump station, where gauges and thermometers are needed for measurement across the device to observe the flow.
The Nextrol instrument station has particular applicability in the Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) industry and specifically involving the piping of water for cooling and heating systems. However, the Nextrol could be utilized in any field of endeavor where measurement of flow would be beneficial, for example, in an oil field or a gas field. Typically, the Nextrol is installed in a hot or chilled water piping system to monitor and measure flow, in which measurement can be expressed in the form of gallons per minute (GPM).
The Nextrol differs from the prior art systems in numerous ways, but is especially beneficial because the accessory ports therein are in a single-piece body. The body of the instrument station can be constructed of any desired material, but is usually constructed of cast or forged metal or molded plastic. The Nextrol instrument station is typically constructed of cast iron with 125 lb. rated flanges that house drilled accessory ports and tapped National Pipe Thread (NPT) threads.
Thus, the Nextrol instrument station provides an accurate measurement device with precision constructed ports to provide exact measurements of flow characteristics. Additionally, by using a single-piece body with available accessory ports, an installer will save labor and fitting costs and reduce the space and time required for installing the accessory measuring devices or piping accessories.
Accordingly, the Nextrol instrument station is directed to resolving these and other problems in conventional instrument stations in piping systems.